


(after the feast) comes the reckoning

by phalangine



Category: Constantine (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Getting Together, M/M, No Plot/Plotless, give chas a sword 2k19, my streak of presenting self-indulgent character studies as fics continues, whatever the opposite of chekhov’s gun is that’s what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-10-18 02:40:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17572733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phalangine/pseuds/phalangine
Summary: “The world didn’t stop just because you decided you didn’t want to be part of it,” Anne Marie says eventually. There’s a bite to the words- she’s always liked Chas in a way she never liked John, a gentle sort of friendship without the push-pull she has with John- but she isn’t making an effort to hurt him. “After Nergal took Astra and you gave up, who do you think cleaned up your mess?”





	(after the feast) comes the reckoning

Chas is angry.

He usually is these days. He’s always had a short fuse, but it’s a different anger now. It’s not the anger that wells up when a kid is fighting to keep precious scraps of his dignity. It’s a man’s rage, the kind of anger that lives in his limbs and makes his footsteps heavier. It’s well-worn, damn near part of him.

And in Chas’ case, deep enough for him to drown in it.

John watches him slam the driver’s side door shut and storm off to his motel room.

Zed’s footsteps are soft as she comes over to stand beside him.

“You want to tell me what's going on?”

John shakes his head, still staring after Chas. “It’s nothing, luv. Just some ruffled feathers.”

Zed makes a soft, thoughtful sound. “It didn’t look like nothing.”

She’s right, of course. Zed’s got a good eye for measuring character, and Chas isn’t a complicated bloke. Hasn’t got an opaque bone in him- it’s not in his nature to obscure.

At least, that’s how Chas used to be. John can’t be so certain of him anymore, not when that anger is seething around John. There was a time when they’d fight and be done with it, but Chas won’t face him anymore. Every flare of anger dies before they have a chance to collide.

“There’s nothing we can do about it,” John says, changing tactics. “He’ll calm down and be ready by the time we go out again.”

He steps forward, intending to go to his own room, but Zed catches his arm and digs in her heels.

Skin to skin, she can see deeper into him than he wants anyone going, but he doesn’t try to shake her off. It’s a cowardly thing to do, to let her gift do the hard thing and find the truth, but even John has things he doesn’t like saying.

When she’s done, she lets go of his arm and steps back. He watches her wipe at her eyes with her sleeve and waits for the inevitable.

“You went to prison.”

John nods. “Killed a girl, didn’t I?”

“But the demon-”

“Wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t summoned him.” Itching for a smoke, John reaches into his pocket for a pack and his lighter. “Got a lighter sentence than I deserved- difficult to make demonic influence into a solid court case, I suppose- but Chas was furious at me for letting them lock me up at all. Still is, as you can see.” Zed nods, visibly biting her tongue as John lights up and takes his first, overdue drag. “The world is a simpler place to him, Zed. I didn't want to hurt Astra, and she was going to die even if I’d stayed away.”

“And was she?”

John shrugs. “No way to know. But I damned her, which makes her suffering my doing.”

Zed doesn’t reply, just watches him with those soft brown eyes of hers.

John puffs idly on his cigarette.

Inside the motel, Chas is quiet.

Eventually, when it’s become clear that Zed isn’t going to speak up and John’s down to the butt of his cigarette, he drops it to the ground and grinds it out with his toe.

“What did Chas do?” Zed asks. 

John frowns. “Do?”

“While you were in prison,” Zed elaborates. “He must have done something.”

“You’d have to ask him, luv,” John says, shrugging. He doesn’t tell her that he refused any attempts at contact from the outside, and because he doesn’t tell her that, he doesn’t have to her that eventually, Chas stopped trying. “He hasn’t exactly been chatty with me since I got got out. I figured it’d be better not to push him on it.”

She doesn’t like that, but it seems she’s had enough pushing for one day.

Tipping his head toward the hotel, John beckons her along. “C’mon, then. We’ve a long night ahead of us. Best we nap while we can.”

 

xx

 

John watches Chas pull the knife out of his side. It must have missed his vital organs- if Chas is going to die, it has to happen quickly, some sort of catastrophic trauma that ends him before his body can fix it.

That doesn’t soothe John’s nausea as he watches Chas drop the weapon into the sink.

If it were guilt, John could just swallow the feeling and move on. He’s not that lucky, though, and the burn that’s creeping up this throat is more dangerous than guilt ever could be.

“We need to talk.”

Chas pauses in the middle of dampening a washcloth. “Do we,” he says.

Jail is supposed to change the ones who go in. That’s what you always hear, and John won’t argue against it. The blokes he saw leave weren’t the ones he saw come in. Even John isn’t entirely the same.

But in this lav, John isn’t the anomaly.

“I could have dodged that knife,” he says.

“Excuse me if I don’t trust you to get out of the way on your own,” Chas snaps.

His fists clench the moment the words slip out, and John knows Chas would gladly jam the knife back in himself if it would get him out of this.

Too bad for him that’s not an option.

Letting out a breath, John takes a step closer to Chas. The room isn’t big, and Chas is his own worst enemy here, his shoulders eating up the space between them in a way a smaller man’s couldn’t.

“Mate.”

Chas clenches his teeth, his jaw twitching as he does.

They’ve never talked about their feelings. Before now, they never had to- every mark one revealed, the other had one to match. Even the most complicated of John’s thoughts has always had a complement in Chas. Maybe Chas didn’t like it all, but he never used to look at John like he is now.

Like John is hurting him just by existing.

But it was Chas who met John when his sentence ended. It was Chas whose couch John slept on the night before they flew to America. It was Chas who’d kept John’s things and Chas who’d packed John’s bags. It was Chas who paid their tabs at bars, and Chas who followed John just because he was Chas and John was John.

It’s always been Chas. 

But Chas never used to flinch at John’s touch.

“It’s done,” John says. “I know it was hard on you, but I’m out now. It’s done.”

The look Chas gives him is exactly as angry as John would have guessed.

“What’s done, John?” Chas crosses his arms, no longer shrinking in the space but eating it up. “Nothing is any different now than it was after you summoned the demon.”

“That’s not true.”

“Then tell me what’s different, because I can’t see a single change.”

John bites back the instinctive  _ I am _ , but Chas hears it anyway.

“Oh, is it different for you? You served your time, so you get to move on?”

“Now hold on,” John interrupts. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Why were you the only one who had to go to prison?” Chas asks. “I was there, too. I knew what you were doing, and I didn’t stop you. I even helped you, John! I should have gone, too.”

The unspoken  _ I tried to go, too, _ reaches John clearly.

“Ritchie was there,” Chas continues. “And Judith. And Gary. And Anne Marie. We all stood by. Shouldn’t we all have gone with you?”

John shakes his head. “That’s bollocks, and you know it,” he snaps.

Chas shifts his weight. “No, what I know is I did the hard thing and kept living. I made sure the people who needed me weren’t suddenly on their own. I know I watched our friends fall apart, and I didn’t have the luxury of hiding. I didn’t get to get so caught up in my own guilt I thought I could just do my penance in a jail cell then come out like everyone I knew hadn’t had to spend a year picking up the pieces of everything I broke.”

John swallows. The weight of Chas’ accusations- and that’s what they are- presses on his chest, growing heavier the longer John goes without speaking.

Chas runs a hand through his hair. It’s shorter now. At Newcastle, it hung past his shoulders. When John saw him for the first time after his sentencing, Chas had cut it short. He hadn’t told John ahead of time, and John almost hadn’t recognized him.

He hadn’t told John that Renee divorced him either, though, so the haircut shouldn’t be much of a surprise.

“It’s my own fault,” Chas says abruptly, startling John. “Renee warned me I was too caught up in you, and I brushed her off. But she’s a good judge of people. I should have remembered that.”

“Chas…”

“Tell Zed I’ll drive first tomorrow. She must be exhausted.”

And that’s it. Chas has said what he needed say, what he’s been sitting on for months, and now it’s time for John to leave.

He shouldn’t do it. He shouldn’t let Chas pour out his unhappiness on John then dismiss him. He shouldn’t let Chas fling his assumptions based on his distorted sense of things at John and not let John challenge them.

John does leave, though. There’s only one thing he’s better at than inspiring hate, and it’s losing to it.

 

xx

 

They make a rest stop somewhere outside Atlanta. Chas gets a call while Zed is in the lav, and he quickly exits the truck and strides across the car park.

He’s been over there for a while, running his hand through his hair and half-heartedly pacing, when Zed gets into the driver’s seat. 

“Renee?” she asks.

John nods. He didn’t have to hear her name or her voice to know who was calling. Renee’s the only person who’s able to get Chas tied up in knots like this. Renee and Geraldine, but Geraldine does it by accident.

In the sunlight, without his own blood on his hands, Chas looks almost normal. Almost untouched by the cloud that follows John and infects the people around him.

Out there, Chas is just another man. Another divorcé going back and forth with his ex.

Another father telling the mother of his daughter he wants to see his little girl and being told no.

“They’re doing better, apparently,” Zed says.

“Than what?” John asks. “He’s miserable.”

“No, he isn’t.” Zed twists in her seat to give John a look. “He gets to spend one weekend a month with Geraldine, unsupervised. It used to be every other month.”

“That’s excessive.”

“Not according to the judge. Chas isn’t a very good dad, John. Some people might even say he’s a bad one.”

“He missed  _ one  _ bloody birthday.”

“One birthday and who knows what else when he went missing for two months.”

John’s heart stutters. “He what?”

“Went missing.”

“When did he-  _ Why _ would he do that?”

Zed shrugs. “You should take your own advice and ask him.”

Instead, John watches Chas shake his head and trot back to the truck. The call must be done because after he gets in, he slips his phone into his pocket.

He looks… not happy but not unhappy either.

Zed reaches over and pats his arm. “Nap time,  _ abuelito _ ,” she says sweetly. “You earned it.”

“I know what that means, you know.”

“Ooh, cranky.”

Zed’s eyes sparkle as she smiles at Chas, and it occurs to John that maybe Renee isn’t the only other person who has a claim on Chas.

There are other people in the world who see Chas and his big hands and his soft smile. They’ll see him and want him, and one day, one of them will do what John can’t and give Chas a love he wants.

They would have to steal him, though. Chas is too stubborn to leave on his own, but if someone would just yank him away from John and love him up for long enough…

It they loved him enough, Chas might finally have a shot at happiness.

 

xx

 

John has loved Chas since before he knew he could. Love leaves a sour flavor in John’s mouth; it isn’t something he ever wanted to seek out. It goes wrong too easily, twists people into things they weren’t made to be and leaves misery in its wake.

He’s loved other people despite what he thinks of it. Anne Marie was the first and the one he wronged the most. She cleansed herself of him when she donned her nun’s habit- whatever fragments of him remain with her, they’ve been washed of meaning. He’s just an experience to her now, a warning and a comfort that her chosen path is the right one.

Chas is the only one who’s survived John. Whatever keeps him coming back, it isn’t devotion like the others feel. He fights with John, digs his heels in and raises his voice. He follows where John leads, but the doors are open behind him.

Yet he follows on.

John is desperate to know why. What does Chas see in him? Is it only debt to the souls John forced into him? Will his last death be the one that frees him from John?

How can he keep taking wounds for John when there are whole days when he can barely stand to be in a room with John?

How can he turn to John when there’s a demon’s hand in his chest and look at him like he did when they were younger- like he’s glad to see John standing where he is? Like he’s relieved it’s his chest that’s been ripped open?

Maybe that’s John’s penance. To see Chas die over and over again, each time looking to him to be sure John sees the mess he made. To love a man whose final thought on earth is to find John and make sure John sees what his spell has wrought.

It was an overreach, a drunken idea that perhaps he could keep Chas.

As though anyone John’s kept hasn’t suffered for it.

He reminds himself of that as the friendly bloke from the club obligingly tugs off John’s trousers, and he reminds himself of it as he washes off the friendly bloke the next morning before he hails a cab with the wrong driver.

And he reminds himself again as Zed tells him he missed breakfast.

“Chas cooked,” she says. “You said you’d be back and hungry, so he made a full English. The leftovers are in the fridge- Chas wasn’t very hungry, I guess.”

John heads to bed instead. He didn’t lie- he  _ is _ hungry. Has been for years.

Just not for breakfast.

 

xx

 

There’s nothing John dislikes quite like desecrated graves. He’s not above digging somebody up, but he does it in service to the living, a greater imperative than letting the family mausoleum go undisturbed.

So far as he knows, the dead don’t typically care about their plots, but graves are more for the living than the dead.

John knows exactly where his mother was buried.

He looks over the broken headstones and ripped up flags and toppled plants, and all he sees are hands flipping the vee at mourners, come to find some scrap of comfort or send along a bit of love.

Beside him, Chas’ hands are white-knuckled. “What kind of monster does this?” he asks.

“The usual,” John tells him. “People.”

 

xx

 

“You made a mistake,” John says. “You could still stop it before it gets worse, though.”

Stephens shakes his head. “I didn’t make any mistakes.”

“One necromancer to another- you made the most basic mistake there is.”

His captor- a local man with visions of power beyond his ken- leans forward. The table between them is sturdy and solidly bolted to the floor. The zip ties keeping John in his chair are placed smartly- John can’t get any leverage.

“Go on. Tell me what mistake I made.” Stephens flaps a hand at John in a humoring sort of “go on” gesture. “I executed the spells correctly. I chose only people whose deaths weren’t traumatic and who had no ‘unfinished business’. And I’ve got you trapped. What more could there be?”

“The cemetery.”

“The cemetery?”

“The cemetery.” John takes a long, deep breath in, then lets it out slowly. “You made a mess, old chap.”

“And?”

“And just because the dead have no unfinished business with the living doesn’t mean the living have no business with the dead.”

A dog barks outside. The sound echoes through the house.

“Didn’t you tell me earlier you live alone?” John asks.

Stephens’ eyes narrow. “What did you do?”

John gives his best effort at a shrug. “Me? I already told you, mate. You’re the one who made the mistake.”

“I don’t see what-”

“The only thing more dangerous than the dead are their devoted granddaughters,” John cuts in. “Considering how much it hurt her to have to dispatch her reanimated mother, I doubt Miss Martel is in an especially forgiving mood.”

Stephens leans back. “You’re lying.”

A door slams open somewhere above them, and after that, several things happen at once.

The most important is Ana Martel storming through the door, her bear of a dog at her heel, arms raised and already lit up with magic.

Stephens makes a run for it, only to open the door and find Chas waiting on the other side.

Zed comes in, too, and she makes her way to John, cutting him out of the ties.

“What’s this?” she asks, tapping the spell written in the crook of his elbow.

“Magic siphon,” John tells her. He’s tired, more tired than he’s been in a long time, and with Stephens tied up with one of his own zip ties, there’s nothing left to squeeze more adrenaline out.

Zed rubs at his skin. “It won’t come off.”

“Gotta cut it off, I’m afraid.”

“John!”

”It’s not like I‘m happy about it.” He pats her hand. “Just ask Chas to do it, yeah? He won’t mind. It’ll probably be good for him, really.”

He’s fading fast, so he’s spared hearing Chas’ unhappiness at having to do yet another unsavory thing for John Constantine.

 

xx

 

There’s a bandage around his arm when John wakes up. He’s in a hotel room he doesn’t recognize, but the bed is decent.

A few feet away, Chas is asleep sitting in a chair.

He’s scruffier than he usually lets himself get, but it fits with the circles under his eyes. The hoodie he’s wearing is one Geraldine picked out. It’s a bit too big for him, which is a feat, but John remembers how soft it felt under his fingers when Chas threw it on and John had had enough to drink to get away with reaching for him.

There’s a soft creak, and a moment later, Zed steps out of what John has to assume is the lavatory.

She smiles when she notices him, tying her robe shut as she comes over and gently sits by him on the bed. “You’re awake.”

“How long was I out?”

“A little over a day?” Zed tilts her head, considering. “Long enough for Chas to yell at the neighbors for being too loud.”

John’s mouth tastes surprisingly okay for twelve hours. 

“Chas doesn’t yell at people,” he says rather than bringing up his teeth.

“He yells at you.”

“I’m not people.”

The words sound heavier than he meant, but the look Zed gives him is almost happy.

“No, you’re not. You’re John Constantine.”

She says that like it means something, something more than what he knows.

“I take it Miss Martel and her dog friend took care of Stephens?”

Expression sobering, Zed nods. “I felt bad for him, at the end.”

Stephens had to die in order to nullify the damage his spell did. That was inevitable.

It’s probably for the best that the bastard picked a grave tended to by a loving descendant. John couldn't magically kill him, Zed probably could but shouldn’t, and Chas-

Not Chas.

“There’s no such thing as a good necromancer,” John says. “The dead have no choice in what they become when we raise them. What kind of person steals a soul from paradise?”

Zed’s expression softens. “Maybe the dead understand? When you’re asking because you love them?”

John shakes his head. “That’s not how it works, luv. The dead know they don’t belong here; they can feel it- maybe not at first, but eventually. And once they figure it out, they want to be sent back. They don’t want to be abominations. They know they shouldn't be here. But we don’t let them go. We twist the system to keep them, and they’re the ones that suffer for it.” He thinks of all the violent spirits who only turned violent after they got trapped in the grasp of human hands. “Inevitably, the person who claims to love them becomes their torturer.”

John hasn’t abandoned his pursuit of a way to get his mother back, but sometimes, having seen the destruction even well-intended people wreak, he’s glad he hasn’t found a way to resurrect her.

He can’t be a man who kills his own mum twice.

Zed nods and gently touches his arm. “You should go back to sleep if you can. It’s a long ride home.”

John starts to object but finds that, actually, he could very easily fall asleep again.

Which Zed spots, of course, and her smile is only half mocking.

“Sleep tight,” she tells him as she busses a kiss against his forehead.

For once, John finds it easy to obey.

 

xx

 

They’re in the cab, pulled up at a rest stop. Zed ran off a couple minutes ago, but they arrived after a tour bus, so John isn’t expecting her to come back soon.

Chas hasn’t said a word to John all day. By the time Zed woke John up, Chas had already gotten up, showered, and begun plotting the next leg of the drive home.

There was a time when Chas’ silence was welcome. It was a sign that he was comfortable, that everything they needed to say had been said and John could just stretch out and take a nap as Chas drove. It was a friendly silence, warm the way Chas used to be- special, too, in the way he saved it for John. Sure, Chas was a generally likable bloke, but only John got to have him when he was quiet.

The longer the silence stretches, though, the more apparent it becomes that this isn’t one of Chas’ new, angry silences. Nor is it one of the electric silences that mean a quarrel is brewing.

It takes some work, but eventually, John manages to catch Chas’ eye in the rear mirror.

Chas’ eyes skitter away.

“Something wrong?” John asks. He tries to bridge the gap between uninterested and antagonistic. It shouldn’t be hard, but somehow, he’s always saying the wrong thing with Chas.

John expects to have to work for an answer- that’s just a part of talking with Chas.

Instead, Chas’ eyes flick back up, meeting his in the mirror.

“Maybe they just don’t understand.”

“Pardon?”

Chas shifts in his seat. “The spirits raised by necromancers- maybe they’re mad because they don’t understand why they were brought back.”

“You were awake for that?” John asks, which gets him a bob of Chas’ head. “And did you miss the part where necromancy is a perversion?”

“That’s not why the spirits are angry, though,” Chas insists. “They were supposed to be dead; now they’re not. If they can think, then they can wonder why. Maybe if necromancers told them why, the spirits wouldn’t be so angry.”

John hums, thinking it over. “That’s a bit overly simplistic, I think. But I’ve never been resurrected from the dead, so who knows? Maybe you’re onto something.”

For a moment, Chas’ expression shifts into something almost pleading, but before John can even begin to dissect it, the passenger side door opens and Zed hops inside.

“All right, boys. Let’s go!”

Chas nods, and John lets his head knock against the window as they return to the road.

 

xx

 

It would be easier to live with Chas’ silences if Chas didn’t insist on breaking them. His rules about how close John can come and how much Chas will listen are amorphous. John will finally be finding his way around the electric fence Chas put up around himself when Chas will knock the fence down himself.

Like now, when he’s changing John’s bandage in John’s bedroom.

Of all the ways John has wanted to have Chas on his knees in his room, this one never made into his dreams.

John didn’t even ask Chas to do this. He was happily ignoring his arm before he heard the knock on his door and invited his grim nurse inside. Chas had the first aid kit in hand, and John never could resist a bit of looking after.

Chas’ hands are gentle as he unwraps the old dressing and holds John’s arm in place while he cleans the wounds beneath.

After he’s finished that and after he’s slathered ointment over John’s arm and covered it with a pad and gauze, he doesn’t let go.

John doesn’t try to wriggle free, despite the feeling that something bigger is going on. He doesn’t like big things, especially ones he can’t see.

“You got more tattoos.”

It’s a simple sentence. A simple sentence so laden with danger that John has to breathe through the reflex to court it.

“That tends to happen in prison,” he says. It comes out too light, dismissive.

Chas ignores it, his thumb tracing the edge of John’s fresh bandage. “You did them yourself?”

“I didn’t exactly have a lot of friends, mate.” John looks away from Chas toward his door. “I killed a child. People don’t generally like people like me.”

“They’re not very good.”

A laugh bursts out of John, startled from his chest by Chas’ judgment.

“I’m not an artist.”

Chas nods, an expression that’s almost a smile sitting crookedly on his face. “No, you’re not.” He looks over John’s chest, his eyes taking in John’s stick and poke handiwork, and the smile drops away. “You could’ve gotten sick,” he says.

John shrugs. “I could’ve, yeah.”

And just like that, Chas’ moment of friendliness passes. He drops John’s arm with a muttered, “Of course.”

 

xx

 

It takes John another day to realize he missed something important.

When he finally figures it out, he has to wait another two hours for Chas to get back from grocery shopping.

“You were dead,” he says, following Chas to the kitchen doorway but stopping short of entering. “In fact, you’ve been dead a number of times.”

Chas doesn’t so much as pause as he hefts the grocery bags onto the counter. “Good of you to notice,” he replies blandly.

“When you said that the spirits aren’t angry because they’re back on earth, you weren’t speaking hypothetically,” John continues. “You were talking about yourself.”

Chas doesn’t deny it. He doesn’t confirm it either, but everyone knows if you’re neither confirming nor denying, you’re confirming.

“Of course I wanted to keep you around,” John says. “You’re my mate.”

“I know that.” Chas has moved onto unpacking the bags, and John briefly loses himself in the almost mechanical way Chas moves, pulling jars and smaller bags out of the bags and arranging them. “You don’t want power, so you want people to stay with you.”

An extremely reductive statement but one that’s not entirely false.

“What is the question, then?”

“Two questions,” Chas corrects him. “Why me in particular, and what am I supposed to do?” He pauses, then adds, “And don’t say because we’re friends. You’ve had lots of friends you’ve wanted to keep around, but I’m the only one you cast the spell on.”

He’s right. He can’t actually know that, but he’s right.

The problem is, John can’t tell him why he’s the only person John cast the spell on. He can’t explain why it felt so important, in that pub, that he make Chas as much an immortal as one man can make another.

“I don’t know why I chose you,” John says after too much time has passed, “and I don’t know what you’re supposed to do.”

_ I didn’t think I’d actually get to keep you. _

Finally, Chas turns around. He crosses his arms as he frowns as John, and John briefly forgets what they’re doing once again.

“At least you’re being honest,” Chas says, sighing softly.

John inclines his head, the best answer he has.

Chas turns away after that, and John, with nothing to keep him in the kitchen, leaves.

 

xx

 

Chas and Zed are off running errands- they’ve apparently started a friendly rivalry over cooking, which makes the mill house smell like heaven and John’s trousers feel a touch snug- when Anne Marie appears.

It’s another bit of bilocation, of course, and just like last time, she doesn’t look happy.

“Hello, John,” she says softly, strangely unantagonistic. “Is Chas in?”

“Zed’s got him getting groceries,” John says, shaking his head. “Why? What do you need a semi-immortal man for?”

Anne Marie gives him a flat look. “Strangely, I care about Chas for more than the curse you slapped on him.”

So he’s not yet back in her good graces. He hadn’t thought he would be, but it was worth checking.

“What do you really want him for?”

“I don’t want him for anything,” she snaps.

John raises his brows. “And yet you’re here.” He tilts his head, considering. “Sort of.”

“Did it not occur to you that perhaps I might simply want to check up on a friend?” Anne Marie asks around a sigh. “A good friend, at that. One who’s been through more than enough because of you and his own stupid-”

She stops herself there, and John can just about see her biting her tongue.

Too late, though.

“What’s Chas put himself through?” John asks. Normally Chas’ poor decisions get swept into the pile of things that are John’s fault. It’s rare for anyone who hasn’t married him to differentiate.

For a moment, Annie’s expression is incredulous. Then it melts into disbelief. “He never told you, did he?" She raises a hand, cutting off John's snort. "No, of course he didn’t. He’s Chas.”

The hair on the back of John’s neck begins to stand up. “Never told me what?”

She starts to shake her head, but John’s heart is thumping in a way he doesn’t trust.

“What did he never tell me, Annie?”

She narrows her eyes at him, looking over his face in search of something John doesn’t currently care about.

“The world didn’t stop just because you decided you didn’t want to be part of it,” Anne Marie says eventually. There’s a bite to the words- she’s always liked Chas in a way she never liked John, a gentle sort of friendship without the push-pull she has with John- but she isn’t making an effort to hurt him. “After Nergal took Astra and you gave up, who do you think cleaned up your mess?”

The answer is obvious. John opts not to say so aloud, but Anne Marie knows him too well.

She lifts her chin, and finally, there’s the anger. “Chas and I did. That’s who. And I couldn’t make myself stay long enough to see it through.” Her fists clench. Angry at him, angry at herself, it hardly matters. “I know you love Chas, or something close to it. But it would be better for him if you didn’t.”

He can’t argue with her. He feels like he should- he should at least point out that she doesn’t know the inner workings of their relationship. She doesn’t even know John’s inner workings.

Yet her conclusion remains sound- Chas would be better off without John.

“Be that as it may,” John says, “nothing you said explains why you’re here now.”

“I suppose it doesn’t.” She lets out a long breath. “Put simply- put  _ very _ simply- this is the anniversary of the day Chas fought a demon on his own.”

John’s heart does something complicated and painful in his chest. “He what?”

Anne Marie gives him a look that clearly says  _ Keep up _ . “Chas fought a demon. Even managed to send it back to hell somehow, apparently. Goodness knows how.” She shakes her head in a way that suggests to John that she has more of an idea that she’s letting on. “Regardless, I believe the efforts he went to were the straw that broke the proverbial back of his marriage. So I wanted to check in and make sure he wasn’t doing anything particularly stupid.”

John never got on with Renee- more like she never got on with him, really, not that John went out of his way to be chummy with her- but he can understand why she’d leave Chas over a demon.

Chas had to have known John wouldn’t ask questions about his divorce, which would keep his dirty little demon fight secret.

Wily bastard.

“Well you needn’t worry,” John says, shaking off the phantom tension that comes with memories of Chas’ marriage. “He’s out shopping with Zed, and the two of them have assured me they’ll be cooking supper.”

Anne Marie nods, visibly relaxing. “You’ll tell Chas I miss him.”

It isn’t a question.

“I’ll tell him.”

She disappears before John has even finished the sentence.

Typical.

 

xx

 

“How come you never told me you fought a demon?”

Chas sighs and continues shuffling through the kitchen. It’s about half an hour past midnight, and Chas has obviously come for his favorite insomnia cure: warm milk with honey and six crackers.

Rather than risk saying something Chas could use to deflect or wriggle out of the conversation, John leans back in his chair and waits for Chas to speak, watching him gather the pieces of his remedy.

It takes a long time.

Even during the day, Chas is the type to take his time. Despite his long legs, Chas is a slow walker; John is certain Chas keeps up with him mostly out of competitiveness. Maybe it’s because he’s so big that he moves so deliberately- there’s potential to do damage at every turn when your head’s that high up.

Add to that the slowness of being awake out of rhythm and it makes sense that Chas would be so deliberate as he moves around the kitchen.

John knows better, though. Chas is stalling.

Unfortunately for him, John doesn’t have anywhere else to be, and Chas can only count to six so many times.

When he finally accepts that he’s trapped and trudges over to the table, he doesn’t look like the man John has known and loved for nearly two decades.

Everything is the right shape and in the right spot, but in the harsh kitchen light, Chas looks years older than he is. His skin is thinner; half-circles like almost-healed bruises hang below his eyes. The low hum of energy that usually accompanied him is silent.

When he lowers himself onto a chair, John almost expects him to break.

“I didn’t really fight it,” Chas says slowly.

“Then what  _ did _ you do?” John prompts when Chas fails to continue.

Chas takes a quiet sip from his cup. “We played tag.”

John narrows his eyes, and Chas shrugs.

“I called some people. A few actually picked up. They set up a trap, and I got the demon into it.”

Chas says this so evenly, John could almost give into his tone and forget the implications of what he’s just said.

“You let them use you as bait?”

“It wasn’t any different from what you and I do,” Chas points out.

His voice is bleak, weak in a way that makes John’s gut roll.

John clenches his jaw. It’s different with them.

He can’t argue with Chas, though. He knows what separates John from the people Chas called, and it’s as flimsy as every other excuse John has.

Maybe it would mend something- maybe, if John told Chas why Chas had to stay out of jail, why John wouldn’t let Chas see him until he was released, Chas would cross some of the distance between them.

Or maybe it would be the last push Chas needs to rip himself free of John.

The silence stretches, and Chas eats his cracks and drinks his milk and honey. He’s closer than he’s been in longer than John cares to think about. John could count the hairs in his beard. He could try to lose himself in the soft contours of Chas’ welcoming features.

He could lean forward and tilt his head, bump their noses together before he kisses Chas.

He could find out if Chas’ beard is as soft as it felt the night John kissed his cheek and filled his chest with souls.

Instead, John stews in his cowardice and says nothing as Chas gets up, puts his dishes in the sink, and walks away, leaving John behind without a second thought.

 

xx

 

Chas is standing behind John, his hands on John’s hips. They’re dancing together, and if John let his mind wander, he could forget they’re here for a different reason than the others.

There’s a monster feeding on humans, and it’s decided nightclubs are its best bet for regular meals.

Feeling Chas pressed against him from the thighs up, John can relate to hunger. And like the monster, John is hungry for something that isn’t his to have.

But he can pretend it is. Chas’ hands have begun to wander, mirroring the other couples, and they fit John too well to have been made for anyone else. They touch him too well for someone else to be held by them.

He can pretend he doesn’t know Chas is looking for a way to be anywhere but here, anywhere that doesn’t have John.

Chas’ body is hot and familiar where they’re pressed together, and if the monster doesn’t kill John, having to live with the memory of Chas holding onto him and knowing that’s all John can ever have might do it.

On the other side of the room, Zed moves her hands in to signal she’s found the bloody monster.

It’s hard to pull away, but John has done harder things.

 

xx

 

Chas finds his way back to the mill house about a day after he died. That’s standard these days; when Chas comes back, he looks for them in town and comes home if he can’t find them.

He’s got different clothes on, a soft-looking red and black flannel and a pair of jeans John neither recognizes nor doesn’t recognize, but he looks well enough.

It makes John’s stomach turn. He’s gotten used to seeing Chas die and come back, but there are deaths like this last one that are too vivid. The memory of Chas getting sliced open, his body hitting the ground and staying there, wars with the reality of Chas bending his head for Zed to kiss his cheek.

She does what John can’t and runs her hands over Chas’ chest, watching for a wince and feeling for dampness, any sign that he hasn’t come back fully healed.

He doesn’t wince, and his shirt is dry. Just like every other time, Chas has returned to them safe and sound.

John hates it. He knows Chas remembers dying. The exact pains of his deaths are murky like all pain is, but he remembers enough not to be hungry for the first few days after his return. He remembers enough not to sleep.

Violent deaths like the one he just overcame hit him the hardest, and John’s hands burn with guilt.

When Zed lets Chas go, Chas looks over at John.

There’s no accusation on his face, just exhaustion.

John’s jaw aches from gritting his teeth; there should be some sign, some sort of scar, to mark what Chas endured. He shouldn’t be walking around with skin as smooth as it was last week. He should have proof.

But he doesn’t, and all John can do is nod at him, glad to see him back where he belongs.

All day he gets distracted by the sense-memory of Chas’ chest against his back. He wouldn’t be able to spot a single difference in it between that night in the club and now because so far as Chas’ body knows, it was never ripped apart.

John knows better, though. He’s seen Chas’ literal heart, and his hands are as wet with Chas’ blood as the monster’s.

 

xx

 

John is attempting to make sense of a Sumerian spell when Zed sits down beside him on the sofa.

Chas is up in New York, spending the weekend with Geraldine. They’ve got plans to go apple picking upstate, and Chas has been looking forward to taking her ever since he got the idea and Renee okayed it. He’s been doing better about not missing days, which John knows is a good thing. It’s good that Geraldine has her father around.

But without Chas, the mill house likes to make itself bigger, expanding until the quiet becomes unsettling and the remaining occupants hole up together.

Worse, Zed has nothing better to focus on than John.

“Why don’t you just tell him?”

John’s pen swerves up the page, leaving a long mark in its wake.

“Tell him what, luv?” he asks, not looking up.

“About jail.” Zed shifts on her cushion. “Why you had to go and he couldn’t go with you.”

It would be hard for her to find a worse topic for them to discuss. She could find one, but it would take work.

And why work when there’s a perfectly difficult topic right there?

“It’s in the past,” John says, knowing it won’t work but trying anyway. “There’s no need to dwell on it.”

Zed mutters something under her breath. “Have you met Chas?” she asks. “All he does is dwell. He’s practically built himself a castle shaped like you.”

John shrugs. The Sumerian isn’t holding his attention, but it will do as a shield.

“Life is full of unanswered questions. Chas knows that.”

“But this one doesn’t have to be unanswered. You’re right here. You could tell him. But you won’t.”

“And I don’t have to,” John points out stiffly. “If Chas is unhappy, he’s free to leave. I won’t stop him.”

Zed sighs heavily. “If it were a matter of you forcing him to stay, he’d push back.”

“So we're agreed- Chas is here of his own volition. Meaning he can leave whenever.”

“That’s not how love works, John.”

John freezes.

She says it so easily. John can barely sleep some nights thinking about Chas’ inexplicable devotion, his mind skittering away from the obvious explanation.

“You should tell him,” Zed continues. “He’s tearing himself up trying to figure out what he did wrong. You don’t have to love him to see what’s wrong with that.” She touches John’s shoulder. “You can shrug your shoulders and act like you don’t care all you want. I know you don’t enjoy hurting people, least of all your friends.”

John clenches his jaw, and Zed slowly takes her hand away.

She leaves him alone after that, but John’s heart refuses to leave his throat.

 

xx

 

Of all the monsters out there, the ones that are mostly human are the worst. Not so much because they tend to look like regular humans but because the inhuman parts are always overpowered.

Chas has a nasty cut on his cheek dangerously close to his eye. It’s bleeding steadily, painting his face red.

His hands and arms are covered in green blood from the alraune. The sword he dispatched it with is still clutched in one of his hands as if he thinks it might spring back to life despite having been separated from its head.

He’s breathing hard, and for a moment, John almost listens to the voice in his head that says now is the time to take the sword from Chas and pull him close.

John’s breathing hard, too, though. The alraune had had him cornered and Zed tied up across the cavern. Chas had gotten separated from them hours before, with no sign of him since, and John had seen the fires of his afterlife in the monster’s eyes.

He hadn’t heard Chas come up behind the alraune. He hadn’t even realized Chas was the one who dispatched it until the monster dropped to the ground in pieces and Chas appeared.

In place of the fires of hell, there’s the simple green of Chas’ eyes, entirely human and familiar.

They’ve been doing this for years, but this is the first time John can recall that Chas has been the one who wrought violent death.

Chas draws a long, unsteady breath, closing his eyes as he does, and drops the sword.

John slowly gets to his feet.

Across the room, Zed has found her knife and begun hacking her way free of the roots the alraune used to imprison her. She looks more annoyed than anything, which is a relief because John wouldn’t have been able to bring them both up at once.

“Chas,” he says, refocusing.

Chas nods minutely, acknowledging that he can hear John.

“Let’s go back, all right?”

He gets a second nod, this one a little livelier, and Chas bends down to reclaim the sword.

John’s fingers itch to touch him, so John shoves then unto his pockets and makes his way over to Zed.

Chas’ heavy footsteps tell John when Chas falls into step behind him.

Zed has just about freed herself by the time they reach her. She smiles over John’s head at Chas, though, and a moment later, he steps around John and brings the sword down through the last of the roots holding Zed captive.

She catches herself on him when she tips forward, bracing herself as she readjusts to standing freely.

If Chas should love anyone, it’s her. Zed is kind in a way John isn’t, and careful in a way he’ll never be. She’s open and constant and warm- all qualities Chas deserves that John lacks.

But as they trudge through the tunnels toward the surface, it isn’t Zed whose steps Chas watches.

And when they finally get to the motel and they all file into one room, it isn’t Zed who sits beside Chas on the bed. It isn’t Zed whose head leans on Chas’ shoulder.

It isn’t Zed who touches Chas’ hand and feels it quiver.

There’s nothing to say. They had to stop the alraune, and they all did what they had to do. John knows that. Zed knows that. Chas knows that.

They’ve been here before, and they’ll be here again.

John’s fingers ache with the dirt packed under his nails.

Chas dropped the sword on the floor by the foot of the bed.

It’s the worst time to speak. John knows that. He knows he should just swallow the words bubbling up in his throat, but out they pour.

“You couldn't come with me because I had to do it alone.”

Chas stiffens but doesn’t interrupt.

“I had to survive the consequences of damning Astra on my own.” John can feel Chas gearing up for a fight, but John is too tired for that. “It’s not about logic, Chas. And it’s not about being fair.”

“Then what  _ is _ it about?”

John shrugs. “Damned if I know.”

He has an idea, but he doesn’t like it, and it won’t help Chas. So he sits on it and lets his mind drift as his body moves with the steady beat of Chas’ breathing.

“That isn’t helpful, you know,” Chas says after a while.

John hums his agreement.

Chas sighs.

“Come on. I’m too old to sleep sitting up.”

It should be hard to sleep with someone next to him, but John is exhausted, and Chas is warm. And for once, that’s enough.

 

xx

 

They’re in New Orleans again. Zed is out doing something with Corrigan, an announcement she made while wearing the kind of dress that makes a man’s heart race just thinking about the hemline.

Chas is sitting on his too-short hotel bed, eating something he got from a very friendly delivery man. One hand is holding a plastic spoon, the bowl is between his thighs, and the other hand is tapping at the keyboard on his laptop. He hasn’t spoken in over an hour, too engrossed in his research to do more than take absent-minded bites.

The tug in John’s chest is one he’d hoped time apart would kill. But here it is, as strong as it was the night he damned Astra, yanking at him and demanding that he get closer. Chas is right there, easily within John’s means to touch.

John watches Chas raise the spoon and bring it close, only to push it into his cheek a finger’s width from his mouth. He frowns, concentration broken, and wipes at his face with a napkin.

The tug in John’s chest has been there for years, since before Chas’ failed marriage, but the older they get, the less there is to distract him from it.

Chas is probably the only man as unstable as John who neither commiserates with him nor pities him.

He’d be a better man if he didn’t know John, and he knows it. Yet here he is, barely fitting on a shitty motel bed, eating takeout, an arm’s length from John’s bed, sliding back into John’s orbit.

There isn’t a man more ordinary than Chas Chandler, and John craves him like a hit of nicotine.

“You’re the only one I couldn’t stomach losing.”

It takes Chas a moment to look up, which is fine because it takes John a moment to realize what he’s doing.

Forehead wrinkling, Chas asks, “What?”

“You told me you wanted to know what made you special,” John says. “That’s what.”

Chas frowns harder.

“I don’t know what you should do, but you should do it with me.” He watches Chas set the bowl on the bedside table, then the laptop. “That’s what I was thinking that night when I cast the spell.”

It’s easy to forget exactly how big Chas is, John thinks as Chas gets up and slowly crosses the room.

No, John amends. It isn’t that he forgets how big Chas is- it’s that he forgets that the difference in their heights is meaningful. They’ve fought before- as much as they drink, as unhappy they were, it was inevitable.

But an angry twenty-something throwing a sloppy haymaker isn’t the same as a thirty-something closing his fist with intent.

Chas’ anger isn’t new, but the knowledge that there will be consequences is.

They’re almost chest to chest when Chas stops.

John has to tilt his head to meet Chas’ eyes.

The cut from the alraune healed days ago, but the exhaustion Chas has been carrying for months hasn’t lifted.

“I can’t tell if you don’t think about the consequences of the things you do, or if you just don’t care,” Chas says. His voice isn’t warm like it gets when he’s reluctantly charmed by John, but he isn’t yelling either. “You didn’t lose me, John, so well done. But what did I get? What did my daughter get?”

If it beats any louder, John’s heart is going to break through his chest.

“You cast that spell, and now I’m with you until my souls run out, but that’s all it is.” Chas’ voice grows sharper, just like John knew it would. “You’re not with me, are you, John? You still act like you’re alone, and as far as you care, you are. Hell, that’s probably what you want.”

He shakes his head, and John briefly remembers how everyone used to tug on Chas’ hair when Chas wore it long. John was the best at sneaking up and giving Chas’ ponytail a quick pull.

He hasn’t touched Chas like that in years.

Chas doesn’t expect a reply; that much is clear in the way he turns away and returns to the bed.

It’s a kindness, really. For once, John doesn’t have anything more to say.

Chas is right, and that’s all there is to it.

 

xx

 

John’s hands shake as he lifts his lighter to his cigarette and takes a long breath in.

“The problem,” he says as he breathes out, “is that men like you think there’s an after where you win.”

Cooper narrows his eyes. “Excuse me?”

“You committed an unforgivable act, mate. Doesn’t matter what human law says- even if you could be sent to prison for the rest of your life for what you’ve done, so far as your soul’s concerned, your hands are still covered in blood.” John shoves his free hand into his pocket where he can’t see it shake. “You’re tainted, Cooper. Everything you touch will be tainted, too.”

“What about you, then?” Cooper asks. “If you’ve got to be pure to do magic, how do you do it? We both know you’re as bad as I am.”

John nods, puffing thoughtfully on his cigarette as he does. “You’re half right. You and I are going to deserve every bit of what’s done to us in the afterlife.”

“And the half I’m wrong about?”

“Magic doesn’t require you to be pure- minus a few rituals. Purity’s a pipe dream for humanity; magic would be unusable if it could only be used by perfect people. But certain spells, like the one you butchered, they require a certain… direction. They weren’t written to do harm, which is why, when you tried to twist them so they’d take lives, they imploded.” John scratches his jaw. “I’d stick to the paint by numbers stuff if I were you. Leave the complex spells to smarter men.”

The corner of Cooper’s mouth twitches downward.

American prison culture is different from what John knows. He can’t be certain what Cooper’s tattoos mean. He can’t even be sure they mean anything.

But John knows magic, and the spell Cooper tried to cast- the spell he tried to turn dark- wasn’t one anyone ought to have tried, let alone one knobhead who thinks a single background check can give him enough leverage to butt heads with John.

“You killed a child,” Cooper points out, as if simply reiterating John’s crime would be enough to rattle him.

“And damned her. That’s the bigger detail.”

“You don’t seem that bothered about it.” Cooper crosses his arms.

John tilts his head to the side in acknowledgement. “Master illusionist, aren’t I? Try not to trust me.”

“That won’t be a problem.”

From the safety of his invisible bubble, Cooper is invulnerable. John can’t overcome the spell on his own, and Zed headed in the opposite direction to use that psychic gift of hers to check for more “magic bombs”.

Hopefully she’s figured out they weren’t bombs but spells misfiring.

Chas, of course, went with her.

He hasn’t been alone with John since that night in New Orleans, and John doesn’t blame him. He doesn’t blame Chas for anything; the man’s just trying to survive John.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting.

Cooper opens his mouth, probably to lob another half-arsed insult John’s way, only to pause and look off to the side.

“Your friends are on their way,” he says. “They’re smarter than I took them to be.”

“Considering you dismissed them out of hand, that’s hardly an accomplishment.”

Cooper ignores him. “I’ll have to ask them how they managed to get past the traps I set before I kill them.”

John rolls his eyes. “For a man who keeps banging on about the life I took by accident, you sure are eager to increase your body count.”

Cooper flashes John a patronizing smile, then turns his shielded back to John. The sunlight catches on his light hair, making it glow as he takes his first step back into the trees.

It’s his first and his last.

The spell John’s been holding releases with a single sentence, and John lunges forward, Old English magic gathering around his fist and bursting as it smashes into Cooper’s shield.

The force of it sends John flying, but Cooper barely stumbles. John can see the victorious curl of his lips as he turns around.

“I told you before- the shield can’t be broken by one person.” Raising his hands, Cooper mutters his own incantation, and his hands begin to glow. “Your friends really do deserve a better friend. I suppose they’ll find some in the afterlife. Perhaps they’ll meet a better version of you.”

The shield flickers as he says “of you”, and that’s when John rushes him from behind, a ball of green light in one hand.

John watches Cooper’s eyes fly open in surprise as he feels a magical fist collide with his kidney.

He drops to his knees, letting out an awful noise as he reaches for his back.

John might almost feel bad about it if he couldn’t still smell the carnage.

“Like I said,” John tells him, getting up, “you really shouldn’t trust me.”

“Unfortunate for you that you’re right about me,” the other John says. “I’m a nasty, tainted bastard. I’ve killed better people than you, and I know full well that after a while, all the blood looks the same.”

Cooper’s expression twists into a sneer. He clearly hasn’t figured out what’s coming, and John can’t be bothered to pity him.

“You think I’m afraid of dying?”

John sighs. “You just don’t listen, do you? Death isn’t the part you should care about. It’s what comes after.”

The other John begins to chant, and a gate opens at arm’s length from Cooper.

“I haven’t forgotten Astra, and I haven’t given up on freeing her either,” John says. “But you’ll rot in the nastiest corner of hell, alone and forgotten.” He scratches his cheek. “Who knows, though? Maybe I’ll get sent there, too, and we can resume this.”

The other John heaves Cooper through the gate before the man can come up a reply. The gate closes soundly, and for a moment, John lets himself feel a grisly sort of pride in a job done.

He doesn’t feel it for long, but he doesn’t feel the ground when it rushes up to meet him either.

 

xx

 

Zed is sitting next to John. She has a box that smells like it’s full of something greasy and very edible, and she’s watching  _ America’s Next Top Model _ on Chas’ laptop, which she has balanced on her shins.

“Imagine thinking five-nine is tall enough for that kind of attitude,” she mutters between bites. “Your walk isn’t good enough for that kind of talk, honey.”

For a moment, John wonders if he’s back in the mill house, but as he looks around, he realizes it’s just another motel. He’s lying on his back on a sofa bed, wrapped up in one of the spare blankets from the cab.

Against the opposite wall, Chas is messing with something- probably the first aid kit. He’s always tinkering with it, trying to cover all their many bases, keep the kit a manageable weight, and be able to close the thing.

His back is to them, but John can tell from the way Chas’ clothes are rumpled that he’s tired. And he didn’t tell Zed to use a plate, which is always a sign that he needs to sleep.

“Been out long, have I?” John asks.

Chas startles, but Zed doesn’t even twitch. “Almost a day.”

“That explains why I’m so bloody hungry.”

Zed sighs and reaches into her pocket, fishing out a five dollar bill. She holds it out, and Chas comes over and plucks it from her fingers. 

“I thought you wouldn’t be hungry,” she explains to John. “Chas, obviously, thought otherwise.”

“Haven’t figured out Chas knows me better than anyone?” John asks. “You shouldn’t doubt him on that, luv.”

It’s reflexive, a friendly barb he doesn’t think twice about lobbing at her until he remembers Chas is still right there.

Chas’ knowledge of John is expansive and far more intimate than John likes to acknowledge. Chas knows John’s virtues, few as they are, and he’s gotten cut on all John’s sharp edges. He’s been a fixture at John’s side, and he’s been a nagging absence.

John wants him so badly he can almost forget about it, like the ache of an old wound as a storm approaches.

There was a time when John could have had Chas. If he’d just looked ahead a little further, if he’d just known how to reach for Chas and pull him into John’s room instead of drinking with groupies and following wherever they led.

It’s been too long to try now. John’s tainted the affection Chas had for him; any chance of it growing into a greater love is gone.

He should be grateful for what he has, but John has never been good at settling for small blessings. He always wants more.

From his place by the first aid kit, Chas shrugs. “It’s a good idea to know the man you’re betting on.”

Zed sighs. “You’ve known each other for years. That’s an unfair advantage.”

“You’ll figure him out soon enough,” Chas assures her. “John isn’t any more complex than I am.”

He says it mildly. Like he’s talking about the weather. Like he hasn’t been so angry with John he couldn’t stand being near him.

Something changed, but John doesn’t have the first idea what.

 

xx

 

They’re eating dinner in a gazebo. It’s dark out, only the weak light from the streetlamp and Chas’ phone to illuminate their meals. John isn’t entirely sure why they’re here or whose idea it was, but Chas is sitting beside him, staring out at the street as he sips his regional fizzy drink.

John’s belly is pleasantly full, and the night is quiet.

“What changed?” he asks.

Chas, for once, doesn’t skitter away. “Zed had more visions,” he says, still looking out at the empty street rather than facing John. “She saw Cooper and you out in the woods. Heard a bit of what you were saying, too.”

“Anything you’d care to repeat?”

Chas’ eyes flick down, away from the street and toward his knees. John can feel Chas’ desire to shrug and move the conversation along growing- that’s standard Chas. It’s remarkable he’s said even this much.

An impulsive part of John wants to push just to see what Chas would do.

John bites his tongue and watches Chas work himself up to speak.

“There are lots of ways to get blood on your hands,” Chas tells the gazebo floor. “There was lots of blood when Geraldine was born, but that’s just how it is. I wouldn’t have a daughter if that doctor hadn’t gotten his hands dirty.”

“I wouldn’t say that where Renee can hear it,” John says, the words slipping out, crashing into the charged air between John and Chas.

The look Chas gives him- which means he’s finally looking- is as flat as the line of Chas’ lips. “You’re not as bad as you say you are. I don’t know why you like people hating you, but I do know it’s not always deserved.”

Before John can extend his thanks for such an overwhelmingly kind declaration, Chas looks away again. “I didn’t get a choice in the spell you cast on me, but every choice I made after that… I made them myself.”

Maybe, John thinks, he should have pushed Chas when they were younger. There’s nothing he can do now except let Chas finish.

“You’re an asshole, but you’ve never wanted to get people hurt.” 

Finally, Chas‘ expression softens.

“You want me to me stay with you, and I can do that.” His eyes dip for a moment, then flick back up. “I can stay with you.”

There’s more to it than that. There’s so much more to it than that.

But John can’t call to mind any reason why he shouldn’t keep Chas from looking away with two fingers under his chin.

Chas leans in without John having to ask, and John’s heart beats faster knowing they’ve said everything that needs saying. Chas is angry, always will be, but he’s staying. He’s here for John, and all the selfish things John has wanted in vain become possibilities as Chas’ beard brushes John’s face.

It’s gentler than John let himself imagine their first kiss would be. The way Chas leans in for another the moment the first kiss ends makes it hard to remember that, though, let alone care.

Their second kiss is harder, and John briefly wonders if they’re going to wind up getting in trouble. He can’t say he’d mind- feeling Chas’ hair between his fingers and Chas’ chest against his palm would be worth it.

Chas pushes closer, his grip on John getting harder, and it seems like the obvious choice to push him back but follow him.

They’re too old for John to be sitting in Chas’ lap in a gazebo at night, making out like they don’t know tomorrow will come- and with it, more time for Chas to work his hands under John’s shirt. More time for John to hear Chas say his name like it’s the best word he knows.

More time for Chas to bruise John’s hips when John moves his hips.

Tomorrow is twenty-four hours long, which is more time than they’ll be able to eek out in this gazebo, but tomorrow isn’t certain.

This is.

“We can’t do this here,” Chas pants.

John kisses the corner of his mouth, just to see how it feels.

Good, it turns out, but not his favorite.

“You sure?” he asks as he noses at Chas’ jaw.

“John…”

“I’ve waited twenty years, mate. You can’t get mad at me for being impatient.” Chas brushes his fingertips along the waistband of John’s boxers, and John sucks in a sharp breath. “Fuck’s sake, Chas! You  _ just  _ told me we can’t do this here.”

Chas does it again, and John has to close his eyes and try to make himself remember how to think.

“I’ve been waiting, too,” Chas tells him, his voice soft in a way he’s never used with John. “Which is why neither of us is going to complain about how cramped the back seat of the cab is.”

John feels his eyebrows climb up his forehead. “The back seat of the cab? You’re making a lot of assumptions about me.”

“All right. You can sit in the front while I have fun in the back,” Chas says. He takes any real threat out of the words by tugging John a little closer. John can feel how hard Chas is and can’t help but rock his hips; the way Chas tightens his grip and rocks up against John feels like the best kind of promise.

It takes John a minute to think of a reply, and when he does, it comes out more honest than he intends.

“You say that like you think I wouldn’t enjoy just watching you.”

Chas closes his eyes and takes a long, shaky breath in through his nose.

He really is fit, and John spares a thought for all the sitting he won’t be doing after they get back.

“As much as I’d like to continue this here, my knees hurt already. Unfortunately, we can’t take this back to the hotel since someone only booked one room- Chas’ expression becomes pained, and John feels a pang of affection for him, knowing that Chas only got the one room so he could keep an eye on John, “-and as much as I’d love to spend the ride home getting you going, you had the right of it earlier.”

Chas opens his eyes. “I did?”

“The back seat, Chas,” John reminds him. “I do hope you weren’t kidding about it.”

Rather than reply aloud, Chas opts to shift his hold on John so he doesn’t have to let go to get to his feet. It’s a ridiculous thing to do, but it makes kissing him as Chas slowly walks to the cab easier, so John lets it go without comment.

Besides, he thinks as Chas lays him on his back, Chas just cleaned the cab, and if he’s not complaining about making a mess in it, then he must only be thinking about John.

And that’s all John wants, really.

That and for Chas to wear fewer layers. 

**Author's Note:**

> i wish i could say i finally properly proofread a fic, but alas... there's nothing worse than reading your own stuff


End file.
